[Champion] Ashe

On April 04 2013 04:55 Alaric wrote:
I disagree with the match-ups, namely Blitz and Sona.
Thresh works well because his 475 range autoattacks and the additional magic damage from his Q's passive let him poke, while Blitz is always all-in. Thresh E and Q let him cc people without standing on top of them nor screwing himself, making him a better peeler than Blitz. Finally, Thresh's Lantern lets him shield you from some damage, or save you from aggression/ganks if he can split from you. Blitz doesn't have anything to protect you with, except his own body, and he isn't the tanky champ he once was.

Blitz is all-in and relies on dealing crippling damage to the opponent when he moves in or gets a hook off. Ashe has the least burst damage of all AD carries, so she can't make use of his initiations as well as Graves, Sivir, etc. She's squishy, has no escapes, and he can't defend her. Anytime they fall behind, Ashe is screwed.

As for Sona, she's often paired with Varus for maximum poke and bulliness in lane: their ultimates combo is also extremely strong, both in lane and during teamfights, locking people down in an AoE for extended periods of time and letting them either run, or land fully Q-Powerchords and fully charged Piercing Arrows.
Ashe has less burst-damage than Varus, lacking Blight's on-hit and on-ability-hit passives, and her poke doesn't pierce like his Q, however they share strengths in good auto-attack range, good poke, good kiting kit, long-range AoE hard-cc ultimates. Ashe works with Sona as "the ultimate poke lane" since forever, and the way Varus is played in combination with Sona in the pro scene is only testament to the viability of that combo.

is an option if your laning opponents are very crowd-control heavy. If you're facing a Taric, Thresh, or Lux, consider taking this.

On April 04 2013 14:54 Vanka wrote:
As far as I recall, bloodboil scales with base attack speed, which ashe has crazy high of, so ashe nunu is actually a strong combo, though less so a lane dominant one. Add to that that ashe scales incredibly with attack speed thanks to her q means that nunu is good for her.

I've typically run flash ghost. Again, ashe's best asset other than her ult is her insane kiting. 35% slow late game is almost impossible for most bruisers to deal with, once they blow their gap closer. This means both if you can get out of harm's way, and then get back into 600 range, you will catch the enemy champion, and they will go down because you will kite them to death.

I try to pick ashe into games where the my team has a lot of damage, either with a high damage support or a strong damagey mid. That lets me rush a zeal (or even finish the pd) first before IE, so I can slow people down constantly enough for people to get the kill. While her upfront damage is deceptively low, the fact that she slows on every hit means that if they're not using an escape, it translates to a ton of actual dealt damage on champions.

In solo queue, I've mostly just used ashe as a counter pick against teams that are running garen, singed, udyr, or sion. Makes life a lot easier lol.

On April 04 2013 08:12 Ente wrote:
I think e maxing is horrible a few reasons:
If you do not skill w early - you have 0 chance to win the lane if you get a single kill (450g with assist) you will most likely get more gold then you get with your e in the whole game (with 2 kills its pretty certain that its more).
It just seems horrible to have no possible way of winning a lane ever , doesnt matter what happens at most you can be even and possibly outfarm. Especially if you get an avarice blade in addition to that.
The only thing which you can do and I usually do is getting 2 points in my e to get the extra range at lvl 8.

If you miss like ~3-4 cs per 2 levels early because you dont have points in your w you already get less gold.
Im not a defensive player though so it just seems horrible to me to not have the ability to go agressive + you cant really push either

On April 04 2013 05:27 Ente wrote:
In addition to that - nothing against you but why did you write this guide - you basically dont write anything besides explaining her skills I dont really think this deserves an own thread

Maxing E first when fed isn't too bad.

As far as I recall, bloodboil scales with base attack speed, which ashe has crazy high of, so ashe nunu is actually a strong combo, though less so a lane dominant one. Add to that that ashe scales incredibly with attack speed thanks to her q means that nunu is good for her.

Running Flash + Ghost is hugely detrimental to her laning power (which is bad enough as it is), in my opinion.

Edit: Found the Jcc post for your convenience:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=398485&currentpage=155#3097

On April 04 2013 21:39 sylverfyre wrote:
Eh, JCC's cash ashe guide is highly conditional on totally dicking over their jungler/team at level 1. It's so situational that using it as "this is how you build ashe, build her like this every game" is completely wrong.

On April 04 2013 20:26 Ente wrote:

really recommend RUSHING avarice blade...
That linked thing might be even worse then this
I dunno why people constantly try to make max e happen, it will not be good unless it gets buffed + I have no idea if he does it like this but his items are incredible one dimiensional you cant always go that itembuild (in addition to that such a late vamp scepter is really risky without lifesteal quints)

On April 04 2013 20:10 TigerKarl wrote:
So wrong about Soraka support. But then again, hardly anybody is playing the strongest support champion properly.

Avarice plus max E lets Ashe get like... 30% more gold from farming than an enemy AD

You could aim for a midgame core of, say, IE, boots2, vamp and avarice.

On April 05 2013 06:49 ticklishmusic wrote:
Avarice plus max E lets Ashe get like... 30% more gold from farming than an enemy AD. You could aim for a midgame core of, say, IE, boots2, vamp and avarice. Probably want a support that gets a Crucible though.

On April 05 2013 06:52 Ente wrote:
soraka/sivir is pretty bad - you want to go agressive with sivir - you dont with soraka.

While that is correct you should rephrase it:
you get 1 gold per skillpoint/lasthit more
you get 2 gold with avarice blade more (which is not relevant - the enemy ad can get it aswell, its just NOT good to rush most of the time)


And why would you not just do the same without avarice blade even faster, you just have usefull spells?

Running Flash + Ghost is hugely detrimental to her laning power (which is bad enough as it is), in my opinion.
[...]
Maxing E first when fed isn't too bad.

With that said, Nunu is good with Ashe, with 2 slows you can lane safe and BB is just awesome. Ashe/Sona is kind of bad I think, both too squishy and no escape pre 6 which if the enemy smart enough they will gain quite an advantage.

Also, I'm just making the assumption that both AD's are relatively evenly matched and competent CS-ers.

Soraka Sivir is a ridiculous bully lane. Sivir just pushes and bullies insanely hard without mana issues. With good coordination, she can can get out of most dangerous situations-- Raka can silence to stall a CC or CC combo, and her spell shield can take care of the rest. It's extremely niche in ranked and vulnerable to counterpicking, but it is definitely workable.

Maxing E first is always bad. Cash Ashe (I.E. Rush Avarice) still max's e second.

On April 05 2013 13:48 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
well nobody plays Kennen anymore, and certainly not AD Kennen

Ashe/Soraka is very very weak early on if the opposing pair has any CC, that's definitely true

On April 04 2013 22:57 Ente wrote:
well pushing the lane is not really an innovative playstyle the rest is just not good.
So yes as a botlane you perma push and you ward gank spots - especially as Ashe when you have really good harrass

Ashe/Soraka is very very weak early on if the opposing pair has any CC, that's definitely true

well nobody plays Kennen anymore, and certainly not AD Kennen

On April 05 2013 18:27 Ente wrote:

Same with Sivir you will just get pushed around lvl 1 - which is one of the most important things - there are just ads which benefit more from being able to spam (it is an ok lane but why would you pick sivir for it and not other ads which are better for pushing)

Ashe's best laning levels are level 1-3 because of how much damage volley does at low levels. It's not until around 4-8 that most champs can really push ashe around and punish her when their steroids and your lack of one starts being more apparent. Volley, 600 range and soraka's heal with armor buff is more than enough to hold your ground level 1.

from my own experience and what I've heard from good players is that lvl 1-3 are the most importonant for bottom laneing. lvl 1-3 can mean a ton of additional farm and the ability to control the creepwave. i can mean forcing early jungle ganks or controlling the jungle. if you abuse the 1-3 hard enough then you can maintain alot of pressure until you hit 6 and that is when things get really interesting with ashe anyways.

what I've heard from good players

On April 05 2013 18:35 Vanka wrote:
...also, this should really go into a different thread, but sivir is the best adc there is at pushing...I mean, she's got two low cd aoe spells.

On April 05 2013 21:35 Ente wrote:
no. Sorakas early lvl is HORRIBLE her heal does nothing and the armor is not much either. Ashes lvl 1 is good yes but her lvl 2/3 arent really good due to the cooldown of her volley (it is 16 seconds lvl 1 I think)

On April 06 2013 02:42 Goumindong wrote:


If you're going to beat Ashe/Roka you're going to beat them at level 2 since level 2 tends to be Ashe's and Soraka's relative weakest point (everyone else has two damage abilities on lower CD, Soraka's heal isn't strong enough to matter)

Beating them at level 2 however requires that they did not beat you at level 1. Ideally, Roka should not be starting with heal. If she starts with silence her level 1 is a lot stronger than you would expect. So while the enemy has an advantage at level 2 remember that level 2 comes right after level 1.

Level 2 all-in lane wins in bottom lane occur because the lane is relatively even before that. One team hits level 2 first, gets a massive advantage and then snowballs. You cannot do that as easily against someone who is stronger than you at level 1 if they choose to press their level 1 advantage. Ashe is a champion that can do that due to the strength of volley.

The Cooldown on volley is 16 seconds at level 1. This means that over the course of the one to two waves it will take to get to level 2 (one wave plus one minion if enemy is blue side) Ashe should get at least two volleys. Both of these volleys should land and both of these volleys should be "free". This puts Ashe's team up 2-4 effective auto attacks at level 2.

So while Roka can be bullied at level 2 and Level 2 is Ashe's relative weakest due to other champions gaining a second damage ability you've got to make it there in a position where you can go in on them in order to take advantage of it. If you can't then you've let them get 3+ and Ashe can just volley spam you all lane long

On April 10 2013 01:59 sylverfyre wrote:
Soraka's level 1 with silence isn't strong at all. Infuse has one of the lowest base damages at low level of any nuke, only 50 damage at skill level 1, silence doesn't stop autoattacks, and the cooldown is long. If she took starcall level 1, there's a real threat from her, but it polarizes the rest of Soraka's development because it delays infuse for so long.

Supports who bring more damage at level 1 than soraka w/ 1 point of infuse: All of them. God forbid it's a ranged support who has some kind of bonus autoattack damage like Lulu, Thresh, or Sona.

Ashe Soraka is terrible. If you really want a healer to pair with Ashe, go with Sona (Dat Level 1 burst damage), Nami, or Alistar. These champions have presence, - Ashe needs her support to give her something to work with, Soraka is only good if your carry can fight and shove by themselves, like the classic Soraka Graves.

Are we assuming the opposing lane isn't doing ANYTHING AT ALL at level 1? Once ashe drops her initial crit on the minion wave, which she HAS TO if she wants to shove harder than you, you can freely start autoattacking the wave as hard as possible, while standing behind your own minion waves so you don't get vollied. Your support can also aid in pushing minions (especially if they're ranged) and is guaranteed to be better than Soraka at doing so. Your carry has a shorter cooldown on whatever ability they started with than volley*+ Show Spoiler +

Furthermore, if Ashe is trying to guarantee hitting the enemy champions with volley, that means she isn't shoving the lane with volley on cooldown. You can't fight level 1 on ashe while also shoving the wave harder than your opponents.

The only champion who i can think of that really gets outpushed badly by Ashe early game is Vayne. Volley's CD is just too long to do what you're suggesting with it, not to mention your opponents might try to allin you after you volley and Ashe has very little to respond. God forbid it's ashe soraka, then NEITHER of you can respond to aggression.

Standing in your own minion wave will not stop you from getting volleyed. While volley does not go through minions, its range and spread allow it to be more or less undodgable by someone who knows how to land it.

If you're Varus (who is a pretty hard counter to Ashe imo) and you put your q through the wave at level 1(without hitting me as well) this is cue for me to win lane. I am going to auto you, volley you(and possibly your support too), then auto you again, and you will have to go back and I will not.

Pushing the wave at level 1 does win engagements, it does not when you have to give up your engagement power to do so(especially against the ADC with the best level 1, good lord why would you give up your engagement power against Ashe).

On April 11 2013 19:55 Ente wrote:
While I kinda agree that Soraka/ashe isnt the worst thing you can have. It still is a bad lvl 1 and Soraka is possibly the worst support at lvl 1 (unless you skill q then she is okay)

On April 11 2013 21:45 Zanno wrote:
bananas

regardless of soraka's amusingly high base AA damage which compensates for her bad lvl 1 skills, pushing hard with ashe is a horrible idea because she has a slow instead of an escape

if you want to use soraka to feed manas to push hard i cant think of a single reason to play ashe over someone like caitlyn who can push as hard as she pleases and still not run oom until she has gold for a BF sword

regardless of soraka's amusingly high base AA damage which compensates for her bad lvl 1 skills, pushing hard with ashe is a horrible idea because she has a slow instead of an escape

why would you ever skill q as varus lvl 1?

not sure what you want to say are you advicing NOT to push the lane? Well have fun against good botlanes then..

Ashe soraka is just boring, with no real teamfight synergy or lane synergy and no kill potential. In fact it's one of the worst laning combinations I can think of UNLESS you aim for an even lane and use your global ults to help mid/top win. You can't even push hard because it's so damn easy to gank them from virtually any angle that it's not even worth the risk.

I mean imagine for a second that you hit two at the same time as the enemy lane and then the enemy lane blows their abilities on the wave and does not hit you. To me, that says "engage now and win the lane". This is what enemies blowing their abilities on the wave at level 1 says to Ashe. Understanding that Ashe's relative timing is at level 1 rather than level 2 is important to understanding the matchup.

Yes e is a better start but you don't stand in the middle of creeps versus varus at level 1 so i was ignoring any abilities that would not even get close to allowing you to win a level 1 trade while damaging creeps.

If you're pushing up to their tower the jungler's just going to plow down bot lane and kill you. J4, Shaco, Nocturne, Vi, etc simply won't care about the two wards you have plopped down (that's assuming they aren't just going to counterpink the tri and deny you pushing power completely and it gets worse if the support has a hard-cc and the ADC has cleanse. Not to mention you have to somehow survive until your lane combo picks up momentum which is level 5. It might be alright if you're on the blue side but I wouldn't even attempt it on the purple side.

On April 12 2013 06:09 Ente wrote:
I think I have a decent understanding about botlane... and no ashe cant fight lvl 1 that well..

wait what you tell me that q is better for pushing while damaging? Sorry but you sir have no idea about how Varus works/never played against a good Varus. There is NO discussion about skilling E first and its by far his best ability for lvl 1/lvl 1 fighting

On April 12 2013 18:43 Ente wrote:
Well I give up with this discussion!

On June 03 2013 00:00 clickrush wrote:
so i like the shiv+IE+pd build because it amplyfies ashes strengths. Shiv IE PD is there to do the maximum damage on initiation with arrow, voley and auto. so from a teamfighting perspective this makes sense.

On June 03 2013 15:30 Jojo131 wrote:
I feel that too much emphasis/importance is placed on Ashe's passive when people build her and in most guides I've seen.
"Oh Ashe's passive lets you crit once in a while, thats why IE/SV are great 1st/2nd items to build on her"

Am I the only who thinks this is kinda dumb? IE and SV for sure are good items on most AD carries, but the crit passive that everyone seems so reliant on hardly seems to come up once you start laning, and it seems to make more sense building an early bloodthirster as your first item since it gives you more consistent damage on AA/Volley and lifesteal on top of that.

Not to say that you wouldn't build IE/SV on ashe eventually, but crit emphasis seems overrated when talking about Ashe's early game. IE is a good item, but the components are too big to consider as a first/second buy unless you're winning already.

On June 03 2013 16:59 Blyf wrote:

SV = Spirit Visage?

Anyways, I agree that the IE start can feel underwhelming and I have also been toying with the thought of going for an early core of BT/Shiv with non-sustain supports. It would probably be something along the lines of dorans, dorans, shiv, BT. Or maybe BF sword, shiv, BT.

Statikk Shiv just feels amazing on her, not so much in lane, but rather in the mid/late game. It helps with fast waveclear, so your team mates don't steal farm in stand offs in solo queue, but more importantly it gives up front burst which is very useful both when catching people out and for getting the killing blow on enemy champions when roaming/dancing around objectives.

On June 03 2013 22:36 Alaric wrote:
They're working on her passive. It's basically the same as right now, except the buff is only consumed for a crit when it's at 100 stacks, auto-ing only resets the 3s delay until it starts stacking again. What it means is that everytime you don't auto for 3+ seconds during laning or a fight, you're getting stacks until you get a sure crit, instead of gaining crit% on your next attack

On June 04 2013 02:33 Ghost-z wrote:
Non-standard items I'd like to discuss about Ashe:

With Volley scaling with AD (not Bonus AD) and only a 4 sec CD at rank 5 > How viable is 40% CDR Ashe?

Brutalizer, Stinger, SotEL, CDR boots and/or runes/masteries.

Also how viable is Spirit of the Elder Lizard on Ashe? Volley should proc it on every hit correct? Does the damage from Statikk Shiv proc the SotEL DoT?>

On June 04 2013 02:47 Ghost-z wrote:
Well if you get +3 regen from masteries and +7 from SS you should have slightly more than double ashe's natural mana regen for most of the game. However I do see your point that this is the major defect in CDR ashe and will probably not be viable on SR.

But if the only CDR item you get is SotEL you'll be able to spam volley much longer.

Edit: This probably is another case of it just being better suited for an ARAM game.

On June 06 2013 05:47 Blyf wrote:
Testing results for blue ashe:

The build I am settled on:
9/0/21 with max cdr and 5 cdr from runes. Otherwise normal ad runes.
Items: SotEL, boots, lucidity boots, Statikk Shiv, IE, PD.

Does it work?:
It seems strong. I play defensively with mass volley spam in lane, and I am really hard to pin down with the 2,4 cd volley. 36 cd hawkshot is good. More arrows is... great! It's like it is up all the time. At this point, I think the build definitely has it's place in a comp that can make use of all the extra utility.

Observations:
Spirit of the Elder Lizard is amazing. As on everyone else SotEL gives such a huge boost to laning and the burn synergizes well with volley harass.
Manamune sucks. You don't really need the mana enough to justify the damage loss in auto attacks that comes from investing so hard in ad/mana. And even if you finish muramana it is crap without attack speed.
Going 21 in utility for the 6% cdr seems like quite a loss in dps, but I'm not sure on this one. More xp, mana and movespeed are valuable as well, but I can't figure out if it justifies scrapping offensive tree.

More testing pending.

Edit:
Math on the loss of dps compared to standard build at level 18 with IE + PD.
Assuming a 100 armor target, the loss of dps from offensive masteries ~ 20% dps
Loss of 20% attack speed from berserkers = 8,5% dps
Combined total loss of dps ~ 27%.

My thoughts on the math results:
The offensive mastery tree is stronger than I thought, and the loss of dps from not having it may be too large to ignore. The next step could be trying out CDR quints to enable offensive masteries without compromising the cdr rush.

On June 07 2013 23:49 clickrush wrote:
i dont get why people so often want to either max cdr or get none at all. cdr is good on ashe not only for voley but also for arrow. SotEL, bruta/BC are all good items on her.

On June 08 2013 03:35 Ghost-z wrote:
I asked this question earlier but never got an answer.

When is it a good idea to get Avarice Blade on Ashe? If you are ahead/even/behind? Should you rush it, build it after IE, or just fuck it because PD is better?

On June 08 2013 06:21 Blyf wrote:


It is probably never a good idea to get avarice except when you have zeal and can't afford the full shiv.

Otherwise you would have to know that you will be free farming for a while without any risk of action with opposing champs... But when does that happen really?

On June 25 2013 21:57 Thereisnosaurus wrote:
I've tried it. I think the key is to note carefully what he did. He bought a tear early, but then built normal AD heavy ashe- bloodthirster, last whisper etc- and didn't complete the manamune.

He just toggled ashe's frost shot- which now triggers the tear- on and off, meaning he could charge it almost as quickly as a singed. He only built it into a manamune when it would immediately turn into a muramana.

It's pretty strong top, where with that much mana you can really bully a lot of the toplaners so long as you don't try it vs jayce. Because of the style of build you can synergise nicely with a more conventional ADC bot and provide support damage and initiation plus very strong push pressure.

On June 25 2013 22:23 Tula wrote:

to expand on this, the tear basically meant he could leave frost shot on indefinitly (with 1 point in it) to stack it, while volley spamming.
He never had to back for mana, but as a tradeoff he was basically one dorans blade weaker for trades at that point, it adds a short window of strength to Ashe (basically levels 5-9 where most of the big items still aren't done) because he can spam his volley hard, but the true payoff point only happens later when he buys the muramana and it instantly transforms.